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Travel 2020 - TBCTravel 2020 - TBC
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Travel 2020 - TBC

January 2020 - April 2024
An open-ended adventure by George Read more
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  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 1

    Mancester —> Colombo

    January 6, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Our 4am alarms rung...we both awoke excited like two children on Christmas morning! Today was the day we had been looking forward to so much for months now, but it was sort of bitter sweet for both of us as we had to leave our family behind. We were up and out by 4:30! I wanted one last drive of Mums Porsche before we left the country so I drove us to the airport. We arrived in good time and I said the emotional goodbyes to my mum who was clearly upset about seeing me leave for, well however long we decided to be away for, even though she’d kept it in for weeks. Into the departures area where we wanted to drop our bags off...which took ages due to the luggage carousel being broken, we finally got to the front of the queue got our boarding passes and the woman informed us that we had to wait in another queue to drop our bags off at oversized bagged as they were backpacks. Next stop security, which was equally painful, not helped by the fact that we both had to have certain items rechecked... it was even more slow as three guys were pulled aside for drug searches which reduced the headcount from 3 just 1 for a while...half an hour passed and we got them back. Toms didn’t go through because his Vaseline was covered up and my electronics bag was too big. Smooth start to the trip but we got through!

    We were flying all the way to Sri Lanka with Etihad. The first flight was 8 hours from Manchester —> Abu Dhabi, which was 1 1/2 delayed setting off due to a sick passenger, but we were comfortable and the in-flight entertainment was good and the food equally good! We arrived to Abu Dhabi and had 40 minutes to get on our connecting flight to Colombo...we rushed off the flight comforted by the fact that Abu Dhabi was supposed to be a slick and efficient airport...we would surely be fine, right? Wrong! We got to the transfer section of the airport and we welcomed by a huge crowd of people trying to get through security. Time ticked away and it looked less and less likely we were going to get our flight. We managed to get into the business class queue and that increased our chances slightly. We were almost at the front of the security queue and we noticed a Chinese family trying to sneak through using their child as an excuse to do so...Tom abruptly stopped them in their tracks and told them to get behind us as our flight would be leaving in 20 minutes! When we were asked to put our stuff through we were as efficient as possible, ensuring my Vaseline was not covered and I even divided my electronics bag up. We had also taken our shoes off to get through and when we got our bags back we scooped everything up and sprinted through the airport...barefoot. Both of us swerved our way past the expensive looking shops, pushing people out the way at times and we found out that our gate was 37, the other side of the airport, of course! Eventually, we made it and they were waiting for us and we just made the flight. Safe to say we didn’t find the time to make our usual stop at duty free to shower ourselves with after shave...which we could both really do with right now. Upon boarding, the other passengers were throwing some serious dagger looks our way..little did they know what we had just been through. From Abu Dhabi to Colombo was around 4 1/2 hour flight and we got food on the plane too, which made us both too happy as we were hungry and weren’t expecting food at all. We tried to get some kip, but failed massively. Looks like tomorrow or today or whatever day it was going to be when we landed was going to be a long one!    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 2

    Day in Colombo

    January 7, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Arrived in Colombo at 3:33:33 as we walked from the plane to immigration. I’d managed to forget to print toms visa certificate, so we joked how he wouldn’t be let in! Eventually we got through and found washing machines, fridges and freezers for sale in duty free. We could tell it was hot so we both changed into shorts and went through to the exit. Tom got himself a SIM card And we asked about a bus to the city but they o it started at 05:30. We took the conscious decision to just grab an Uber as it was only £5 to the door if Island Hostel in Colombo where we planned just to drop the bags whilst we explored as we were staying at the sister hostel that night in Mt Lavinia further south before picking the Tuktuk up tomorrow. Upon arrival at the Colombo hostel, we learned that the sister hostel was closed for refurbishment and had been for some time. We couldn’t believe it. After the flight and connection drama, now this!! Looks like we were staying In Colombo...but we had to wait for a manager to find out properly.

    We left the hostel (still only 05:30) and went straight to the coast where the train line runs north the south. We crossed the tracks and sat on some big rocks thinking of the journey and that we we’re finally here. Before it got hot we decided to walk around the city. First to Galle Face, then to old Dutch Hospital, then the Red Mosque and floating markets where to our horror we saw men pissing on what looked like kitchen worktops for no apparent reason! It was getting hotter and hotter and our jump from winter to summer felt extreme! By 8am we were miles away and tried getting back on what seemed like the unending streets of Colombo. We eventually made it back via a Sri Lankan Waitrose which wanted to charge us £2 per apple, so we dumped them and left, but we were back at the hostel...still only 9am. We chilled out for a bit, they had a pool which was a life saver and we generally sorted out our bags trying to find everything a home. Finally by 12 our room was ready so we went for a quick nap as we were exhausted, 15 minutes turned into an hour...ooops, but we needed it. We asked the owner of the hostel where was good for Kottu, a classic dish here. She recommended a place and we went, probably not the best example but it was tasty and we’d definitely have it again. After this we headed to Gangaramaya Temple which had a huge collection of Buddhist offerings including a stuffed elephant and some hair in a jar. It has a sister temple, on a lake which was very pretty. Finally, for sunset, we went to Galle Face again which is the classic spot in Colombo. It was a great way to end our first day of travels. We walked back to the hostel for a well earned shower and bed. An early start would follow tomorrow to go and collect our Tuktuk.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 3

    Colombo —> Hikkaduwa —> Unawatuna

    January 8, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Tom woke me up early with a text to see if I was up...I was now! He’d been awake for a while and thought it was best we got off in good time to Mt Lavinia. At that point we decided that if one of us was awake super early, we’d leave it to a sensible time then get the other up so as not to waste the day. So we checked out and headed for Kollupitiya station for the 7:30 train just a 10 minute walk from the hostel. We ended up arriving just as another train did so we were swamped with people on the stairs, and the train tracks. We grabbed some tickets, a mere RS15, so 6pence in England and boarded the train to Mt Lavinia along with the locals looking bemused at us. We got off the train, which runs between Galle Road and the Ocean, and decided we’d head straight for Tuk Tuk rental.

    After the video and the briefing we met our instructor and went to a secluded part of town. Tom was up first, we soon realised how complex and counter intuitive it is to drive a tuk tuk. Tom confirmed this by not being able to reverse, so we decided there and then that any reversing would be done the dumb way - by hopping out and pushing the tuk tuk backwards. Fairly soon Tom got the hang of it and the instructor took us back to the start point for my lesson. It was weird at first but got the hang of it quite quick. Few more bits of paperwork and we were off - straight into Mt Lavinia/ Colombo crazy traffic. We were getting used to the controls, one of those ‘practice makes perfect exceecise’ we found out. After a couple of hours we stopped for lunch and we got our first taste of the assortment of curries which is common across Sri Lanka. The food was amazing, it was a bit of an order and see what happens situation, but it paid off. After this we kept heading south and made it to the Hikkaduwa tsunami museum. This was on the site of a lady’s house which was washed away in the 2004 tsunami. It was a huge collection of information, photographs and memories which she was sharing with everyone, quite a touching museum. Further south and we hit Hikkaduwa beach...our first Sri Lankan beach!! We couldn’t resist a dip and the water was like a bath. We bobbed around for a bit thinking of how just 36 hours earlier we were on a plane. We needed to continue further south to Unawatuna, so hopped back in the Tuktuk. We found our hostel and parked up inside the gates. Next job was to get to Unawatuna beach a kilometre or so away. We walked there to get sunset but it wasn’t so great, but we still went for a swim in what turned out to be a Russian hotspot, so strange.

    On the way back we found this tiny house on an almost commercialised street. It was a little restaurant called Sridhara, great local cooked food. We were the only ones there as it was the cheapest place around! We were exhausted, so we walked back to the hostel grabbed some showers and called it a day.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 4

    Unawatuna —> Galle —> Weligama

    January 9, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    I didn’t sleep at all last night. Woke up at 2am and didn’t get back to sleep. Kept going outside to see the stars and to see if it was getting light. I woke Tom at 6am as we’re planned to go to Galle for the morning. We drove to town as the sun came up and got some petrol, our first fill up and it cost 800 rupees (£3). We parked up in some random spot and walked through and archway into the old city of Galle. We went up on the fort walls and saw the classic lighthouse. It was getting very hot so we decided to go down from the walls and go through the shaded streets in pursuit of some breakfast. We found the National Tea Rooms which was the oldest cafe In Galle...since 1932 and got dhal and bread and hoppers for brekkie which cost us a grand total of just £0.65 each. We made our way back up to the walls as the cafe owner had said that when the cricket is on you can see into the stand, which was pretty cool....free tickets!!! We went back to the Tuktuk and headed to the Jungle beach which was meant to be secluded and quite secret. Turned out it wasn’t so secret, but it was still very nice with warm waters and soft sand - what more could we want at 9am? We chilled here for a bit and then climbed round the headland to a second jungle beach. We’d seen on our maps that there was a viewpoint, but we weren’t able to get round in flip flops - so we found a point where we could jump off into the sea. We trekked back uphill to the Tuktuk and went to check out of our hostel, and grabbed our bags.

    Tom drove us to Dalawella Beach, stalling on the train tracks near the hostel which put us both into an induced panic, but we made it to the famous beach with the swing. The waves were enormous and the currents strong, so it was only dipping for us. We found a tiny little shaded spot on the back of the beach to set up our stuff, then UK Amanda cane up to me and asked if I could put some sun cream on her back. We all chatted and exchanged travel stories about Sri Lanka and various other places for about two hours, enjoying the sun and the occasional dip in the sea. We left Amanda behind and went to our new place in Weligama about 25 km away. We were met by tea and biscuits upon arrival by our lovely new host. We went straight to the beach, a nice little walk away from our homestay. This beach was completely different to the others, a wide open beach with long gentle breakers. Weligama was a surfers hotspot because of this. We went body surfing in the waves and played like big kids, nothing new there. We got dinner at this tiny little restaurant called Day Long, Just set back from the Weligama main strip. It was cheap, huge and delicious - our three favourite words when describing food. We had what we thought was sweet potato curry, but we asked and it was pumpkin!

    After dinner Tom took a risky toilet break at the restaurant...it was a squatter with no toilet paper, his classic finger technique was back in use just 2 days in. He described what had happened and I was nearly in stitches as we left the restaurant. We grabbed some stuff from Cargills and then walked back to the homestay where we saw an elephant on the back of a lorry. We asked the driver what was going on, turned out it was going to a festival in Galle tomorrow. Anyway, back to the homestay for a night sleep before more exploration tomorrow.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 5

    Medigama beach and Weligama Surfing

    January 10, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    The homestay room was boiling hot overnight, so neither of us got the best sleep. Amazing how it can be hotter inside than out! We went to Mirissa to check out whale watching place and then went back had a big breakfast courtesy of our host which immediately gave me the shits. Whilst I was out of action Tom capitalised and did some clothes washing. When I came back round we went to Medigama beach which I’d seen the previous day on the journey to Weligama, it was only about 7km away.

    Tom parked up Tuktuk and we went over the banking by the road and the amazing beach awaited. We spotted a palm tree at the far end of the beach and went to camp up. Gorgeous weather and the best beach we’d been on so far. We played around in the waves, had a little snorkel and generally chilled out. We got to grips with the new bat and ball but not the new shuttle cocks. We chilled for another hour or so nipping in and out of the sea thinking about how everyone at home was getting to the office!

    We headed back to Weligama to the beach. We camped out again and decided to get a Coca Cola at a beach hut. Tom went to order and we awaited them to arrive and looked forward to them. We watched as the waiter brought two cokes and put them on the table next to us to a family with two kids. They necked them and we were left thirsty. No more cokes arrived so we duly got up and left to find a surfing rental. We went to Elephant Surfing and paid RS 250 (£1.10) for an hour on the boards. We signed them out and went on our way. The bay at weligama is perfect for surfing, so we looked spectacularly amateur compared to all the Assies who’d travelled here especially for the surf. About 10 mins in I noticed a slice in my board done by a previous pilot and realised that they would probably say it was me...anyway we attempted to surf. Tom got up on the first wave and I thought he was actually good. Took him a while to get another and stay up :) we both managed to catch some wave but also performed some spectacular wipeouts. The hour was up and with ears and eyes full of water we returned the boards. They accused me of damaging the board, shock horror, but we said it was already like that, paid and left.

    On our way back into Weligama, we were treated to the best sunset so far, so we went into the beach to soak it all in. Even after the previous nights’ toilet episode, we went for dinner again at Day Long Restaurant, but this time got egg rice and curry. We assumed it was egg fried rice, but no. It was the same as the previous night, white rice but this time we got a side dish of a boiled egg! Not quite what we had in mind but Tom said it was delicious to which I coined a new phrase of Dhal - icious referencing Dhal Curry. Stuffed, we walked back to the guesthouse and packed up for the early start to find blue whales tomorrow!    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 6

    Whale Watching —> Dikwella/Heriketiya

    January 11, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    *bang bang*. Disoriented and dazed we both woke up wondered who the hell was trying to smash our door down at 430am... we soon realised it was the cute old man waking us up to tea...an hour early! We got up had tea, said our goodbyes and packed up the TukTuk and made our way to Mirissa for the whale watching tour. It was a clear, chilly morning and the morning light was starting to break through lighting up the road. We arrived paid our 7,000 (£30) and made our way across to the harbour where we got on our modern catamaran with first pick of seats...we went for the front two obviously! We were welcomed onboard with a cup of tea and a sea-sickness pill...however were reassured that the sea was rather clam today which was great for spotting the giant blue whales!

    We set out to sea into the sunrise and before we knew it the boat stopped and the crew pointed out two turtles in the water...”making babies”. Shortly after that the boat stopped again as we were joined in the water by a pod of Spinner Dolphins...we guessed up to about 10 of them! We noticed there was a huge group of boats in the distance and a plane hovering above it...the captain of our ship explained to us that there is a blue whale over there and that they had this info all morning...however he doesn’t like to chase the whales nor join the crowd, rather he prefers to wait till the crowds are gone and then find another whale rather than crowding or chasing. We both really liked that so enjoyed the boat ride. Shortly after our conversation with the captain he had intel of a whale up ahead that was only joined by 2 boats so we made our way over there. Eager and excited we stood at the front of the boat waiting for a spotting... with a blast of water into the air we saw it! A blue whale surfaced revealing its HUGE body and then dorsal fin, before smashing down its huge tail to take a deep dive. We stayed at this location for the rest of the morning, with slight relocations based on the whereabouts of the whale. We saw the 18 metre female surface between 10-15 times. One time in particular we were positioned away from the other boats based on a gut-feeling by the captain...and out of nowhere the huge blue whale shot out of the water with its huge mouth wide open engulfing hundreds of krill, and preceded to come closer and closer to the boat, surfacing 3-4 times en route. It passed the boat directly in front underwater and started the blow bubbles and it was then where you could see her sheer size! It was genuinely a moment neither of us would ever forget - where you feel completely insignificant. The captain wanted one more viewing of her before heading back to shore - she surfaced again not too far from the boat but this time she was swimming away from the boat, she gave us an awesome display of her huge tail as she went down for her deep dive.

    On a total high from what we had just experienced we got into our TukTuk and drove to Coconut Hill; an Instagram hotspot that we wanted to checkout, to see if it was all that it was made up to be. In all honestly it was very nice, a hill overlooking the ocean with an abundance of palm trees. We even saw a turtle in the water from the top of the hill. We both wanted to get a picture together with the nice view and a Sri Lankan man insisted on taking our picture, ensuring that he got all the angles before giving Tom his phone back with much less memory than before due to the quantity of pictures taken!

    Back to our TukTuks and we drove to Dikwella. We were actually staying nearer to Heriketiya beach in a beautiful home stay calm Cinnamon House. Beautifully maintained gardens and the host was a lovely lady who straight away wanted to give Tom remedies for his sunburnt arm and me for my neck. It was VERY hot, so shortly after checking in we went to check out Heriketiya beach. We grabbed a Roti from “Roti Hut” on the way and meandered through the streets to find the beach. A small beach which was certainly beautiful, but rather busy.

    After a few hours of chilling out there we went back, showered and then went out for dinner. We tried to find somewhere in Dikwella for food, but there wasn’t any places that were tickling our fancy so we went back to Heriketiya and found a nice place that did buffet style curry for 450 each. With full bellies we went back to the homestay and got some good sleep!    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 7

    Tallala beach and local Kottu dinner

    January 12, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    After a comfortable night sleep we woke up around 8, and were straight out. We stopped off briefly at a temple near to our homestay, but quickly left after a man started signalling to us something that we couldn’t understand...could’ve been saying good morning for all we knew, but he was probably asking for payment. We then made our way to Talalla beach that we had heard from as being beautiful and secluded beach. It was around 10km from our home stay but was so worth the drive. It was a long stretch of gorgeous white sand and the water was the perfect temperature, however it was pretty rough and very very hot with not many shaded spots. We found a palm tree to base ourselves under and we chilled out for a bit reading and listening to some music.

    After a while we both got really hot so decided to go for a dip in the rough see and basically be children in the waves....I came up with a great idea (sarcasm) for a game that was essentially chicken for going under the waves before they hit you...a huge wave came and Tom lasted longer than me on this one occasion, but it completely sent Tom flying all the way back to shore and ‘scorpioning’ on the sea bed. Technically Tom won that round, but did he really? After all that sun and being battered by the waves we really worked up an appetite, so Tom went for a walk to the shop we saw when we parked up to get 2 veggie Rotis for us to eat on the beach... in the shop the locals were looking at Tom as if he was an alien just landed on earth, rather than just a hungry human being.

    At 2pm we both decided that was enough sun for one day! We went back to the home stay for some chill time, stopping off at the bakery and Cargills for a 5L water. I wasn’t feeling too good so we just stuck the Greatest Showman on and lounged around in our beautiful homestay for a few hours. The film eventually finished and I had started to feel better, so we both got showered and found a small local restaurant on the corner of the road into Heriketiya. We sat on plastic chairs and the whole family at one point passed by doing their part in preparing our meal...we had order vegetable Kottu and it was delicious, all for 250...around £1! We had a quick look on Dikwella beach which wasn’t as nice as Tallala, but we still got a good sunset. Thoroughly satisfied we made our way back to the home stay to get some sleep!    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 8

    Dikwella —> Tangalle

    January 13, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    I still woke up feeling awful and had convinced myself it was Dengue, but Tom said that I was being ridiculous and it was obviously the amount of sun we’d had. We’d decided the night before that we weren’t in a rush, so we were having a leisurely day. Over a game of shithead we met Sophia, a yoga instructor from Swindon but living in Bristol. She recommended that we go to a secret beach (unlike Heriketiya) which wasn’t too far away. It looked really nice on her pictures so we gave it a go. Abandoning the game of shithead, we fired up the Tuktuk and set off for Blue Island beach - it was gorgeous. A little beach bridging a little island to the mainland. We saw the locals bring in a massive tuna fish, taking three of them to carry it to the scales they were all exlaiming ‘big fish’ with their arms open wide! We chilled here for a bit watching the waves crash on the rocks and then headed back to the dinner place of last night to grab a veggie roti.

    We saw Sophia walking along the road, she was heading to the blow hole so offered her a lift. We had to quickly check out and pay (not that the host was bothered or precious about our checkout time) and then we all headed to the blowhole, our first passenger!! After a quick fill up of fuel, we were at the blowhole...well, nearly. A guy tried to stop us and makes it for parking but we politley declined and parked up the road...RS50 saved (20p). We walked along the trail until we reached the blowhole visitor centre. Obviously this was not a free attraction, 250 rupees...and the man said it wasn’t great today because of the calm sea so we gave it a miss and went to a nearby beach for a swim...completely secluded apart from a few local men. We all had a nice dip in the beautiful sea and chatted for a while. We dropped Sophia half way back and then made our way to Tangalle and the Sun Star Homestay a few kilometres from Tangalle town, down a questionable road. Turned out to be a really nice little place albeit in the arse end of nowhere. We dumped our bags and decided we’d go get some cash from Tangalle town. ATM 1 didn’t work, ATM 2 took some finding but we got cash and stocked up on water. We headed back to the guesthouse and straight to the beach as it was really close. We chilled out and read our books for a couple of hours as the sea wasn’t the best to swim in.

    Back to the homestay and it was time for dinner, as we hadn’t asked earlier it took some time to come, but when it did it was the best Sri Lankan food we’ve had, and the quantity was insane. We shared dinner and stories with a Swiss couple and a Spanish/German couple, getting tips for ourselves for later in Sri Lanka and other places and dishing out a few ourselves. At 20:30 our host had said we could all go with him to see if any turtles were on the shore laying eggs, we all jumped on this great little perk to this homestay. We all set off and we walked for what seemed like ages away from all civilisation until we came across a small green turtle digging a hole with her fins to lay. This is something we’d both wanted to see for ages and for the second time this week nature amazed us! We sat near the turtle for about 40 minutes until our host said it was ok to go closer and take a look. The turtle was patting down and covering up the eggs, the body making a deep thudding sound and vibrations felt through the sand a few meters away! Job done and she span round and made her way back to the ocean. Truly amazing! With it being 11pm now we all headed back to the homestay for a good nights sleep so grateful to have seen nature at work this evening.    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 9

    Tangalle —> Udawalawe National Park

    January 14, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Loudly awoken by the sound of a watery plop from next door... oh the joys of thin walls and shared hatched roofs! Sounds like the Spanish girl had the shits! Some more funny noises and a deep sigh and it was over. We managed to grab an hour or so more sleep and then got up and ready so we could head to Udalalawe National Park. We got on the road and decided to take a more scenic less main road route to Udawalawe, turned out to be a good call and we went through some beautiful scenery in the lowlands...mainly rice paddies. We were trying to get to a couple of waterfalls and ended up driving into the arse end of nowhere only to not find them or anyone who spoke a word of English to help us find them. We managed to attract a weird group of people who didn’t want to leave us alone and perused us in their Tuktuk. Just a few kilometres outside of Udalalawe we decided to grab a bit of lunch, we wanted something small so we got rice and dhal. The place we went said we could have bowls of dhal for 35 rupees each (14p) so we got one each and some rice. When leaving, Tom also wanted a roti for 30. So we were expecting a bill of around 120 rupees all included (50p). But they tried it on and wanted to charge 450 rupees as apparently rice cost 200 each!!! We flat out refused that logic and tried to hand over 120, but this was met with disgust and they told us to leave...so we did. Free lunch then :)

    Fortunately we got to Udawalawe without anyone chasing us with, Tom doing a stellar job of driving. We got to Greenwood Safari Accommodation which was right on the border of the national park and we’d heard good things from Sophia the previous day about the safari and the owner of the accommodation. The ‘rooms’ in this place were cool as they were just large beds outside under a sheet metal roof with a mozzy net to cover you...it was amazing to hear all the sounds grow and grow through the night. We immediately confirmed the safari booking for the following morning and then we got a short history lesson on pretty much everything to do with Sri Lanka from the owner...he was such a patriot and also a researcher so knew a lot. We asked him if there were any other things to do, he suggested a temple and sent us on a treasure hunt for some ‘artefacts’. However he didn’t give us any clue but he asked us to bring back pics. We found nothing he talked about and ended up just climbing a boiling hot black rock. He seemed surprised when we couldn’t find the buddhas foot or some other stuff. He then started on about some Sri Lankan conspiracy about a mercury powered vortex plane from 8000 years ago. We were a bit sceptical so did some googling, turns out that he was so convinced that this existed but it was some myth...unbelievable.

    Anyway, It was time to have a look at our plan, turns out we’d heard mixed things about Aragum Bay, so we moved some other things around so we could have a bit more time in Ella and also add in Polonnaurawa, an ancient city near Sigiriya. After shifting some things around, we needed to get some sleep as we had to be up early for the safari!    Read more

  • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
    Day 10

    Udawalawe Safari —> Diyaluma Falls

    January 15, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    We got up at just after 5 so we could get ready for the safari pick up. Straight away we were glad that we’d put jeans and a jumper on as the jeep sped towards the park entrance we were getting pelted with dirt and cold air! We went to the park entrance and our driver went to get the pass. He took ages and ages and pretty much all the trucks left, so I went to enquire with him what was going on. He said that he had to wait for another driver who had money! Another example of Asia never making sense. We were keen to get going as this was a sunrise safari and it was rising quickly!! Finally we got on our way into Udalalawe.

    Pretty much as soon as we got in we saw an elephant and it’s baby. We knew that we’d see them but not that quick! The next hour was spent bumping around seeing Serpent Eagles, owls, water buffalo, foxes, kingfishers, storks, a rare wild cat, and bee eater birds...not to mention the thousands of peacocks. I was thinking that maybe we wouldn’t see any more elephants, but then we saw a massive herd just ahead. Round about 10 of them just grazing. It was our jeep and one other which was, unfortunately, full of Russians who wouldn’t stay quiet and were trying to touch and stroke the elephants as they came closer...stupid. We had about 40 minutes with the herd and just observed them grazing. They eventually moved on and so did we. The rest of the time was spent just looking at some amazing birds and listening to the dawn chorus.

    We got taken back to the accommodation for some hoppers for breakfast from our host. Even though we had two nights booked, we had decided to leave Uduwalawa today and find accommodation on the way to Liptons seat to spare the huge journey (plus there wasn’t much else to do here). Tom sorted it out with the host and booking.com and just after midday we were on our way, Tom drove today and smashed it as usual! We got to near where we thought we could get Liptons Seat from and there was Diyaluma Falls, a 230m high waterfall. We found some accommodation and tried to barter down the price with the woman. She said 2750 we wanted to pay 2000. We settled on 2500, still a free dinner! We met Jen and Matthias who said the waterfall was amazing so we decided to get straight up it. A short drive and some free parking later and we were off walking to Diyaluma falls. It was a nice walk up but when we got there it was even better than we thought. A huge drop and we had to get some risky pictures...sorry mum.

    There were some higher falls which we’d been told about and apparently were like infinity pools so we climbed up and they were also really nice so we went for a swim with the locals. With the falls all explored we went down to the Tuktuk and this little girl demanded 100 rupees for parking, nice try but it was free. We headed to Koslanda for dinner at this really good little restaurant and then chilled back at the accommodation chatting to Jen and Matthias about our Tuktuk adventures as they had also rented one. Time to hit the hay as a long day was ahead on our journey to Liptons Seat, we set up the iPad on a table between both of our beds and watched a film to fall to sleep to.    Read more

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